


When you’re close to me

by Lydiarosex



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: 2D is a hopeless romantic, Action/Adventure, Addiction, Drugs, Drunk Murdoc Niccals, F/M, Fake Character Death, Fluff and Smut, Heartbreak, Love, Lust, Rescue, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Sex, Sisters, Slow Burn, Smut, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, plastic beach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-24 08:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16171631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lydiarosex/pseuds/Lydiarosex
Summary: It was just a normal friday night out in town, when a certain band came along and suddenly changed her life. Without having time to realise, she found herself falling madly and deeply for this blue haired, black eyed boy. Will he be her saviour, or will she be his?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> So this is my fic ive ever published on here, i havnt written a story since i was in school so im open to constructive criticism if you have any for me. This chapter takes place in 2003, during phase 2 somewhere.  
> Thankyou so much for reading and please enjoy! <3

If theres one thing that calls you back to this place every weekend, its the atmosphere. The smell of spilt cocktails and sticky floors doesn’t do the club justice, but somehow you find yourself back here time and time again.  
The word around was that a pretty big band was playing tonight, and you just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about.  
“Same as usual please” you say to the bartender. already knowing what your poison is, he comes back moments later to place your drink in front of you and you smile as you hand him the crumbled up note from your pocket.  
A couple of drinks later, you realise the place is packed with people, most likely all waiting for the band to come on stage.  
You stare down at your almost empty glass, the ice at the bottom watering down the last few drops of your drink, so you decide to down the remains as you tilt your head back like taking a shot.  
You feel someone brush your shoulder as they sit down in the empty seat beside you, the smell of both cigarettes and a failed attempt to cover the smell with cologne lingers in the air as you place your glass back down onto the bar.  
You turn to look at the stranger and the first thing you notice is his deep azure blue hair perfectly sculpting his face, locked in place with lots of gel and hairspray.  
He looks up from his beer bottle over to you, his eyes are completely black like bottomless voids. It was almost mesmerising to see how weirdly beautiful his facial features are as you continued to study his face.  
The corner of his mouth starts to turn into an awkward half smile and you suddenly realise that you’ve been staring at him, and he’s been staring at you.  
You take a deep breath and dart your eyes around the room trying to look at anything but him before you calm your nerves again and start to speak. “ i-i uhh, like your hair, its different, yeah its cool” nice one. Trying to play it cool but you stumble on your words like vomit.  
You shift awkwardly in your seat before he grins widely at you, showing the gap in his teeth that you never noticed before. “Fanks, i like urs too, its pritty long”. You relax back into your seat knowing that he returned the compliment.  
“Come for the band too? Cant say I’ve ever seen this many people in this place before, they must be a real something if they can raise a crowd like this” you say as you look over your shoulder to see the huddled group of people behind you.  
He looks slightly puzzled at your comment and he goes to answer, but pauses and raises him arm to scratch the back of his neck as he goes to speak again. “Yeah, i mean i dont know much about em but i ‘eard they were quite good”, he also looks out among the crowd with you, enjoying a brief moment of silence together, soaking up the beautiful stranger’s company.  
Before long he glances back over to, “i should probably go find me mates, il catch you in a bit maybe?” He says, looking as though hes asking permission from you to leave.  
You feel slightly disappointed by this. Was he not interested in talking to you? You was starting to feel like maybe you said something wrong. “Oh, yeah sure! Of course, il see you in a bit” you smile, trying to hide the fact that you don’t really want him to go away just yet. You watch his azure hair disappear into the crowd, and you cant help but sigh a little.  
After a couple more drinks you hear the crowd star to rile up. The band is probably going to start soon, so you down the last of your drink and make your way through the crowd, bumping shoulders and getting a couple elbows along the way to the front.  
Moments later you see the band members emerge from the back of the stage and the crowd cheers and whistles to see them come to take their places on the stage as the lights dim and the spotlights come on.  
You had to squint your eyes slightly to adjust to the lighting, as one of the band members introduce themselves. “Ello everyone! We are gorillaz and thankyou for comin tonit’! This one is called clint eastwood”.  
Hold up, gorillaz are playing? No way, how could you not of known that? They are huge! Over the last few years, they have become pretty popular and you have definitely listen to their songs more than once after a night out.  
As your eyes adjust, you become fully aware of who’s a few feet in front of you, and who you were just talking to at the bar. It was 2D, the lead singer from gorillaz. Holy shit.  
During the entirety of the song, all you could do was stare in awe at this man. The way his eyebrows crease together as he focuses on the rhythm of the music, the way he clings onto the microphone as he taps his foot to the beat, the way his eyes flutter open every so often to take in his surroundings and to look out onto the crowd.  
The song finishes and you come out of your trance again, realising that you probably looked like a fool standing there like a mannequin, fixated on the black eyed boy.  
Time goes on and you begin to lose yourself to the music, hips swaying as you sing along with the people around you.  
2D takes a moment before he begins the next song, introducing his band members. He grabs the microphone and takes a long look over the crowd, eyes suddenly meeting yours. You nod approvingly to him before laughing, and he cant help but try to hold back a smile at you, before looking away and starts to sing again.  
It didn’t feel like long before the band says their goodbyes and departs the stage. You didn’t want it to end, you could listen to their music forever. Making your way out of the crowd back towards the bar for another drink, you cant help but smile to yourself looking back at the last few hours of the night. Those short glances you exchanged to each-other during the gig left you feeling like a little schoolgirl.  
The majority of the people that were here tonight have left and the club goes back to playing music through the speakers, the remaining half make their way back to the dance floor and the bar, making it hard for you to keep your spot at the bar.  
You decide to go into the toilets to freshen up, since you probably look all sweaty and gross from dancing and being huddled up to others.  
You splash your face with water over the sink and stare at yourself in the mirror, checking to see if your makeup is still in place. Your long dark hair falls over your cheeks and you look at your hot flushed face.  
You sigh at yourself as you take one last look at yourself before you make your way back to the bar.  
As you make your way down the hallway from the bathroom, your eyes light up as you see who you’ve been wanting to see all night.  
“Hey there, fancy seeing you here!” You say to 2d who is currently leaning against the wall having a smoke. He looks up at you and waves you over. You copy his position on the wall next to him. “Hey, sorry i didnt say anyfing earlier bout who i was, just thought it would be more interesting this way” he says. “No worries, its fine” you giggle. “Glad i found you before you disappeared again though”.  
He holds a box of cigarettes up to you, offering you one. You take one out and light it between your lips, leaning back against the wall before exhaling the thick smoke. “Im rena by the way” you say, turning your head to look in his direction but find that he is already looking at you too. “Its great to meet ya, rena”, repeating your name as if its the sweetest sound he’s ever heard.  
“So how comes your here tonight then?” He wonders, considering you didn’t actually know who was performing here tonight. “Oh right, well to be honest i was supposed to be coming here with my band mates, we arranged it a couple weeks ago, but i left them a couple days ago so i decided to come here on my own instead, why not”.  
“You’re were in a band? How comes you left?” asks curiously  
“We didn’t really have the same visions for the band, i guess i took it more seriously than the rest of them” you say, sighing slightly.  
“Ohh, right... sorry bout tha’. What dya play?”  
“I was the guitarist, and i wrote most of the music” you say proudly.  
He seems excited by this as his eyes light up like he should have a lightbulb above his head. “Wow thats cool! You should come meet the guys, they will love ya! Especially noodle, our guitarist!” He says loudly, like a kid trying to contain his excitement.  
“Are you sure? I mean from what ive heard, murdoc can be a little..”  
“Yeah i know, but don’t worry, il be with you!” He interrupts, as if he knows exactly what you were going to say.  
“Well okay then, but maybe we could go outside and chat for abit before we go see them? I hardly know you, and id like to know more about you... if thats okay?”.  
He blushes as he nods,looking down as to try and hide his pink cheeks “yeah id like tha’. “He seems flattered that you want to get to know him.  
You spend a while together, sitting on the wall outside talking about lots of different things and finding out that you have quite a bit in common. You love how goofy and excited he gets when he talks about music.  
After a while of talking and a couple cigarettes later, he leads you back indoors over the the lounge area where you find the rest of his band mates talking with each other.  
Noodles eyes are drawn away from her conversation with russel to look over at you and 2D walking over, and she smiles at both of you.  
“Hello! 2D, who is this you brought over??”  
“Guys, this is rena. She was ere listening to us tonight and well, we got talking and it turns out tha’ she plays the guitar!”  
Murdoc suddenly looks up from his beer bottle to take a glance over at you. He takes a good looks at you before smirks. “Oh? Is that so”  
Murdoc pauses again and this makes you feel uncomfortable. He gets up and walks over to you, expecting something bad to happen but instead he brings his hand up to shake yours. You shake his hand back.  
“Its a pleasure to meet such a lovely lookin lady, seems face ache here finally grew some taste in women”.  
2d seems slightly uncomfortable by this remark, in-fact i think everyone seems to feel a bit awkward by murdoc’s less that subtle flirting.  
You shift the awkward conversation by saying “its a pleasure meeting you all, I’ve heard such great things of all of you, especially you noodle”.  
“Thankyou! You are very pretty rena, thats so cool that you play guitar too! Maybe we can play together some time”.  
“Pleasure to meet you rena” Russel says from the corner of the sofa, looking pretty sleepy.  
“Come sit with us for abit?” 2D says, so you take this an invite for you to sit down next to the young girl noodle, who seems happy that you sat by her.  
After a couple rounds of shots (excluding noodle, which she wasn’t happy about) and funny conversations later you start to feel at ease with them, even murdoc seems to be enjoying your sense of humour and company.  
A song comes on that noodle gets ecstatic about and jumps up, holding her hand out to you “oh my god i love this song, rena come dance with me!”. You giggle at her enthusiasm and you decide to join her, all those shots have finally paid off as you wouldn’t usually get up and dance, especially with a teenager that you only just met. You prefer to stay by the bar with a drink in hand and watch others make a fool of themselves on the dance floor instead.  
You get up and give a cheeky smile at 2D before you wobble your way over to the dance floor.  
Getting into the rhythm, you start to sway your hips and nod your head as you watch noodle dance. Wow, for a 13 year old shes got some serious moves. You’re feeling pretty daring, so you give her a mischievous grin and decide to break out your best moves, both laughing as you try to upstage one another in an unofficial dance off.  
You start to tire out after a while, so you go to head back to the rest of the guys but you notice that they have all been watching you both dance this whole time. Murdoc has a sinister grin on his face, god knows what is going through his dirty mind right now. 2D has also been staring at you this whole time with a bashful smile on his face. What was he imagining whilst he was watching you dance? You blush at the thought as you head back over and decide to sit beside him.  
It takes a minute before he says anything, as if he was trying to find the right words to say to you. “You uh, looked really cool up there dancin wiv noods”.  
“Thankyou, i dont usually dance but im feeling particularly happy tonight” you giggle.  
You both find each other staring into eachother’s eyes for a brief moment, not even caring that the others will clock on that you totally fancy this guy.  
“So, rena” murdoc interrupts. “How about you come over to the studio monday and have a jam sesh with us? Im interested to see what ya can do”  
He asks you.  
You are over the moon at this. ‘Gorillaz want to hang out with me?!?’ You think to yourself, you cant possibly pass up an opportunity like this.  
2D looks at you anxiously as he waits for you to answer.  
“Yeah, id love that” you smile over at murdoc.  
“GREAT!” 2d says loudly, standing up from his seat, not caring to hide his excitement over the fact that he will be seeing you again.  
You grin widely at his response, for you too are also happy that you will have an excuse to see him again.  
You spend the rest of the night talking to each other, whilst noodle and russel are sleeping on one another and murdoc has disappeared to chat up some of the groupies at the bar.  
You feel your phone buzzing from your back pocket, so you check to see who it is. Your taxi is here, wow is it that late already? You must have lost track of time.  
“My taxi is outside, i should probably get going” you say to him, feeling sad that the night is over.  
“Alright, il walk you outside then”.  
You grab your things and head outside with 2D following close behind you over to your cab. You stop and turn around once you reached the car.  
“Thanks for tonight, ive really enjoyed myself” you say as you reach for you bag and grab a pen from one of the inside pockets.  
You click the pen and begin to write your number on 2D’s arm, not even bothering to ask him first.  
He doesn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by the fact that you are scribbling numbers all the way up his forearm, in fact he seems pretty content by it as he looks at your face all scrunched up trying to concentrate on putting the right numbers down through the blur of all that alcohol you drank.  
“Yeah, i ‘ad a wicked time as well. See i told ya they’d like ya”  
You snicker, “hah, i guess you were right” you wink at him. “Dont forget to text me the address, oh and make sure to tell the others that i said goodbye!”  
Before he can say anything back, you give him a quick kiss of the cheek before turning around and jumping into the taxi, too embarrassed to look back to see his reaction. As the taxi drives off to head towards your apartment, you stare out the window thinking back on the night. You are so glad that you decided to come here last minute.  
Its barely been 2 minutes before you hear another buzz come from your phone. You quickly reach into your pocket to pull the phone out and unlock the screen. ‘Kong studios, essex CM5 0AG. p.s cant wait to see you again rena. Love, 2D x’  
You cant help but bury your face into the palms of your hands as you grin from ear to ear that the next he sent you. He seems like such a sweet guy, and you spend the next 2 days re reading it over and over again, waiting desperately for Monday to come along.  
Could this be the start of something amazing? You are eager to find out.


	2. The jam sesh

You wake up to the sound of your alarm blaring into your ears, and without opening your eyes you roll over and slam your hand down on the nightstand beside your bed trying to feel for your phone. ‘Ugh, why did i make it so loud?!’ You say to yourself as you swipe the alarm off and place your phone on your chest. You lay like this for a minute before you remember that its monday, and in an hour you’re supposed to be at kong studios with the band.  
This suddenly motivates you to jump out of bed and head to the bathroom to get ready for the day.  
~ You cant help but gawk at the sight as the taxi pulls up outside a huge mansion on top of a steep hill. ‘They live here?’ You say to yourself as the step out from the car and pause for a second, before taking a deep breath and walk up the mountainous slope up to the front door.  
You take a few seconds to catch your breath before you press your finger into the doorbell. A few moments pass before a familiar beaming face appears in front on you. “You made it! Its good to see you again” noodle wraps her thin arms around you and you return the hug. “Its good to see you too cutie. Although i cant say im enthusiastic about that walk up here” you joke. “Ah yes, you will get used it dont worry” she says to as she grabs your sleeve and leads you towards the hallway leading to the recording room. “Everyone has been looking forward to seeing you again, especially d. He wont stop going on about you” she turns back and smirks at you. You cant help but giggle at the thought and she continous to lead your through the gigantic building.  
This place is even bigger on the inside, why on earth do they need all this space? It would take hours to explore you think to yourself, eager to take a look around. You push those thoughts to the back of your head as you walk through the doorway into the recording room to see the rest of the band mates inside each completely focused on whatever it is they are doing. Russel is playing about with his drum set trying to replace the bass drum that appears to have a massive hole in the front, oddly enough in the shape of a large boot print. Murdoc has headphones on sitting infont of a computer listening to something, shaking his head every few seconds and throwing crumpled up notes in the bin next to him. You see 2D almost immediately, as if your eyes were magnets and they were drawn towards him. He is sitting on the floor leaning against the sofa with various notepads scattered around the floor with a keyboard on his lap. He is enveloped in his work, and it takes noodle to pipe up before anybody notices that you have arrived. “Look whos here!” She says and suddenly all eyes were on you. “Rena love!, come over here i need your help with something” murdoc says. You nod and place your bags on the floor, and take a glance over at 2d who has been looking at you, trying to grab your attention back to him. He smiles shyly at you and gives a small wave, blushing slightly and you smile back. You hold your finger up as if to say you will be over to greet him shortly just after you see what murdoc needs help with. You probably shouldnt delay at seeing what murdoc wants, and he nods understandingly and gets back to what he was doing. you walk over to murdoc, eager to hear what he has to say.  
“Hey, whats up?” You say cheerily. “Ere, take a listen and see what you think. The more i listen the worse it sounds” he grumbles as he places the headphones over your head. You’re a bit taken back by his authoritative attitude, but agree nonetheless considering he seems to be in a pretty good mood today, unlike what you’ve heard about him he can be a real arsehole most of the time.  
You listen for abit before pulling the right side of the headphones up so that you can hear yourself talk. “Im liking it, its got good rhythm.. but i think you need to change this part maybe” you say as you play around with the music software, moving parts about and adding things in. “Here, what about this?” You say anxiously, hoping that he likes what you did to it. He listens for a while with a serious expression on his face, before he turns to you. “Yes... YES. This is promising rena, im impressed” he winks at you and gives you a devilish grin before turning back to the computer screen and continues with what he was doing.  
You take this as your opportunity to leave and have a quick chat with russel and noodle who are now both playing their instruments and joking about with each other, so you decide to join in for abit before heading over to 2D who you have been looking forward to hanging out with again all weekend. In fact, he was definitely the main reason that you have been in such a hurry to get over here this morning.  
You sit down beside him, shoulders barely touching each other and he looks up to see your face really close to his. He doesn’t seem to react awkwardly to how close you are, instead he seems pleased by the fact that you are here with him now. “Watcha working on?” You say to him as you lean over his shoulder to look at the note pad on his lap. “Oh jus’ sum lyrics for dis new song i come up wiv yesterday. I go’ inspired over the weekend by dis set of revolving doors and i just ad to get started on it”. You giggle at that, making him laugh back. You find comfort in his innocent laughter, its the first time you’ve heard him after all.  
You spend a while just catching up on his eventful weekend. He tells you about how they all ended up stuck on the motorway for hours after murdoc’s winnebago broke down saturday night. He and noodle spent two hours seeing who could balance the most stuff off of russels stomach before he woke up, whilst murdoc was off having a hissy fit about how much it was gonna cost to fix the damn thing.  
After a while of talking and joking, you finally manage to unglue your eyes off of 2D to have a glance around you. You notice nearby that there was a perfectly good acoustic guitar placed on the sofa opposite where you are, so you push yourself up off the floor. 2D notices the warmth from your skin leave his side and looks to see what you are up to as you go to sit down on the opposing sofa and place the guitar in your lap.  
You close your eyes and start to play one of your favourite childhood songs, focusing on nothing but the sounds echoing out from the guitar. You always seem to let go of yourself when you play. Like nothing else around you exists.  
You start to hum the beat of the songs before you start to sing.  
“And so i cry sometimes when in lying in bed just to get it all out what in my head and i, I am feeling, a little peculiar” you sing your heart out, not even noticing that there is no more noise going on around you, and that all eyes are on you right now.  
“And so i wake in the morning and i step outside and i take a deep breath and i get real high tonight. Scream from the top of my lungs, whats going on?  
And i said hey yeah yeah eh eh, hey yeah yeah, i said hey. Whats going on?”  
You strum the last chord and open your eyes again, bringing yourself back into reality. Your eyes widen with realisation that everyone in the studio had been listening to every word that came out of your mouth. You forgot that you failed to mention that you were also a pretty decent singer.  
“Wow! Rena, you didn’t say that you were a good singer as well!” Noodle is the first to break the silence. You scratch the back of your neck and laugh stiffly. “Hah, yeah” not knowing what to say back, you feel a little embarrassed.  
Murdoc claps his hands together loudly to interrupt yours and noodles short conversation. “Rena my dear, how would you like to work on a track for the new album with us? You’ve got real talent, and we need someone like you on the album”.  
You take a second to process what he’s asking you. ‘He wants me to be part of the gorillaz album?! Thats crazy!’ You say to yourself.  
You look over to 2D to see what he thinks about this, but realise that he is staring at you weirdly, like you have something on your face. He just stays like that for a bit before he realised that he was staring, so he coughs into his fist and looks back down at his work, pretending that it never happened.  
You brush of the strange interaction and turn back to murdoc to give him an answer. “Well, if thats what you all want, then... yeah id love to help out” you say grinning ear to ear, excited at this new opportunity that has just arisen.  
The last couple months of your life have been a nightmare. You felt like your life was going nowhere. You made your money from the gigs that you and your band had, and most afternoons you would teach kids how to play the guitar. It paid the bills, but you always felt like something was missing in your life. You craved adventure, you wanted to travel and fulfil your dreams. This wasn’t supposed to be your life, you wanted so much more than this. You felt selfish for thinking so, considering you had an apartment, a job and a talent that has gotten you pretty far in life so far which most people cant say the same, but you still felt like there was a new life out there waiting for you.  
This opportunity had you thinking that maybe this could be the new start that you had wished for all these years?  
You stand there for a moment, looking around the room as everyone seems ecstatic that you agreed to work on the album with them, the chattering eventually fades out with the sound of noodle and russel getting back to playing with their instruments.  
You smile to yourself about the situation, before remembering that strange moment you and 2D had a moment ago, so you begin to walk back over to where you and him had been sitting before. You sit beside him like you did when you first got here, shoulders and thighs touching slightly and he stiffens when he feels you beside him.  
“Did i do something wrong?” You say to him, thinking that maybe you pissed him off somehow. “Its just that i noticed you looking at me weirdly a minute ago...”  
He sighs before sliding the keyboard off of his lap before shifting slightly to face you. He takes a deep breath before he regains his relaxed composure again. “No rena, you didn’t do anyfing. Its just, you were so beautiful singing just then. i freaked out abit. Sorry”  
You were stunned by what he said. “Really? You think im beautiful?” You say with innocent eyes.  
“Y-yeah, i really do” his big black eyes looking into yours. They were so bright and beautiful, you could stare at them forever.  
You exhale your breath that you didn’t even know that you was holding, and rest your head down onto his shoulder, smiling with relief. “Thankyou” you whisper. You know that he heard you because he leans his head onto yours slightly too. You share this sweet silence between each other for a while, soaking in each others presence.  
Why does he make you feel this way? You cant deny the fact that you are starting to crush hard on this wonderful person. Does he feel the same way? You cant help but think that yes, he does too.  
You and the band spend the next couple of hours hanging out, laughing and having a couple jam sessions with noodle. You both try to out battle each other by pulling some sick solo’s on her electric guitar, but end up having more of a laugh over it than it being a serious competition. murdoc leaves for a while before entering again with a crate of beer announces that, since its a special occasion, he will be throwing a ‘legendary rave’ as he calls it, in a couple weeks to celebrate you joining the team. You all grab a beer and clink your bottles together in unison. “To rena, and to my fantastic judgement of character. If i hadnt piped up and asked her to come here, you never would ave had the balls to it yourself eh face ache?” Murdoc says mockingly towards 2D. He doesn’t seem phased about murdoc’s remark at all as he tuts. “To rena” 2D says before winking at you and taking a swig of his drink.  
The next couple of weeks will be a wild ride, and you cant wait to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drew another pic here as i feel like i can get a better idea of the environment and their interactions if i doodle some scenarios out.  
> http://occilateyourselff.tumblr.com/post/178921130175/my-oc-and-2d-made-for-the-second-chapter-of-my
> 
> Are the chapters long enough for you? Please leave feedback as it will help me make the chapters better in the future. Much love xo

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like i needed to draw my OC to get a better picture of what she would look like, il probably draw more of here in the future and post a pic with each chapter. Here she is:  
> http://occilateyourselff.tumblr.com/post/178643133070/i-decided-to-re-draw-my-gorillaz-character-better


End file.
